


you built me palaces out of paragraphs

by silverinerivers



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canon Timeline, Character Study, Extended Metaphors, Gen, Gon you are light the fic, Insecurity, Introspection, M/M, No Dialogue, Self-Discovery, Suicidal Thoughts, but it ends on a good note, which are based in canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:54:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27176173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverinerivers/pseuds/silverinerivers
Summary: Everyone knows you should never stare directly into the sun. But Killua’s never been much into following the rules.Gon looks at him,reallylooks at him, and Killua shrivels up and burns to a crisp under that earnestness, the intensity of it. The words aren’t much; they were probably thought of on the spot. Yet Killua’s already taken it all in and spread the seeds where it may, a siren song curled around his ribs, birthing a type of magnetic yearning.
Relationships: Gon Freecs & Killua Zoldyck, Gon Freecs/Killua Zoldyck
Comments: 6
Kudos: 48





	you built me palaces out of paragraphs

**Author's Note:**

> Ahh, it's been a while since I've posted killugon fic! I was kind of in a small writing slump, and this helped me get out of that a little. I'm glad I was able to finish it, just a day late after the 9th anniversary of their first meeting in the 2011 anime. 
> 
> Up to you if you want to treat this as platonic or romantic, hope you like it!
> 
> Title from Burn by Philipa Soo from the Hamilton Soundtrack, because I really wanted to use this line as a fic title one day.

Killua was raised in a world of shadows.

They live high up on a mountain, guarded by gateways and rumours. Their occupation is one that is usually shrouded in anonymity, and it only speaks to the reputation of the Zoldyck family that their home has become a tourist attraction of sorts. It stands tall within the stratosphere; not a hidden sight by any means, yet quite out of reach.

And that’s the way the Zoldycks like it, to be known and untouchable.

The first thing Killua remembers is that he will become the Zoldyck heir one day. It is ingrained in him, a fact of his very existence. He is raised with that exactly in mind, the word _prodigy_ becoming a word that just gets shoved at him. They increase the difficulty of his lessons until they become certain that they are indeed exploiting the full extent of his enormous potential. Every step of the way, they break Killua down, cracking bones in half just to make them grow back stronger, building him back up with pain as his master, his calling card.

Killua finds parts of himself while dissociated, focusing on anything but the physical, lashes and bruises and scars scratched on top of scars. Being the heir isn’t a fact, but a role. Killua is only beginning to learn what responsibility means, but he already doesn’t care for it. A job gets you status, brings in cash, but it doesn’t mean anything to Killua. For him, it was always about following orders to make his mother shut up, to get Illumi out of his hair. It was always get in, get out, never a spare moment to actually see even a glimpse beyond that, perhaps be seen himself.

It wasn’t just one moment that made him think that assassination might not be his life’s calling. There were a number of reasons: how he found no joy from the act of killing, nor did he feel particularly accomplished after completing a job. It wasn’t even a challenge by a certain point. Killua knew he could get the task done, because people who hired assassins to kill were usually the same ones who made only weak enemies. So for Killua, he had already reached the apex of it, now having been reduced to only exercises that’d hone him into a sharper, more efficient human weapon. The progress was slow going, because – well, it was getting boring, stuffy in a transactional way that should only be reserved for adults.

There just _has_ to be more than this, there must be, because god if this to be his entire life, he’d go fight his father, become heir a couple of decades too early just so he could remake the family occupation altogether. It couldn’t always consist of assignments handed down to him, or his family telling him what his birthright was just by virtue of having been born with white hair.

Who wants to have their whole life planned out for them anyway right?

There is a whole world out there, far off havens not under the watchful eyes of his parents, not full of corpses he helped carve out with his own nails.

Killua decides to go carve something else with his own hands this time around and runs off for the first time without the intention of sinking back into the dark.

It is when he meets Gon that he realizes how freeing it could be to just be himself. Fully, unabashedly, without the chance of punishment.

Everything is for the taking now. He can finally flee from the grandiose backdrop that is his life, of being told what he can and cannot do for his own good, of how he has no room in his life for friends.

Gon becomes his friend and defines the word for Killua.

(He will become Killua’s first, and for a long time, the only one that truly matters.)

It takes Killua time to learn that he is not good at everything, not even close. He can’t heal as fast as Gon, god knows that idiot needs the extra boost given his single-tracked stubborn mind. He can’t beat Hisoka while he taunts Killua with a skill that he doesn’t even know the name of yet. Prodigy or not, Killua is not good enough to stand on his own yet in the wild, having clearly been given just enough that he could handle and not notice he was being coddled all this time.

 _Of course_ _they would_. It wouldn’t exactly bode well for the Zoldyck family to send its heir off to die on a suicide mission, or anything overly challenging. That’d be a risky decision made for no good payoff.

No, he is not good enough as he is, but Killua knows he is talented, and they just need to polish that into something usable. Luckily, Gon is just as clueless as him and it serves as perfect poetic justice that they end up stumbling into Nen together. Even better, Gon has just as much raw potential as Killua, Wing says, and the two of them leap over galaxies in light years. It’s training, but it’s a different kind than what Killua is used to. Getting it right, it feels akin to the same kind of expression Gon wears on his face day in and day out without shame.

It’s happiness.

Of all people, he picked out Gon in that dark tunnel. A shiny light in the darkness, a gem in the rough, one that can keep up with him, who pushes him to be better. He makes Killua want to become stronger for the sake of it. He wants to be able to shut Gon up in arguments when they compete with his fists as well as his words. He wants to soar to new heights, together, for no other reason than the fact that they _can._

It’s thrilling, boundless.

And it feels good, to use that power to beat someone up for money in a different way in front of everyone, instead of hiding in the shadows trying to be invisible.

He’s probably wanted it for a long time.

However, until he met Gon, Killua didn’t realize how nice it was to feel seen.

They are twelve years old with erratic heartbeats and a lifetime paved in blank slates beneath their bare feet.

Under the eternal stretch of midnight sky and uncountable twinkling stars, it may have marked the last time that Killua truly felt like a child.

It may have also doubled as the first.

Gon’s smile towards him is a solar flare and Killua twists away on instinct, his cheeks feeling unexpectedly hot, caught unaware. 

That’s…new.

He’s been trained to handle a lot of things, threats, poison, good old-fashioned torture. No one taught him how to handle the sun on Earth, staring directly at him.

Killua needs to get himself a pair of eclipse glasses or something before he goes blind from the sheer force of it.

Gon asks him to stay with him and Killua agrees.

Why wouldn’t he? Only good things have happened to him since he met Gon.

Killua’s world gets spun on its axis a short while later, a noticeable tilt.

It isn’t that Gon brings good things with him, or that he draws them in. It is that Gon is as free spirited as Killua wishes he himself could be openly, seeking the grandeur of the world after being constrained to only a slice of it. It’s not like adventures will come looking for them in small crammed faraway places. He isn’t a princess who needs to be saved; he wants to define his own story.

For Killua, he sought out the Hunter Exam because he had heard it’d be a challenge, a journey worth going on. He didn’t care about the badge at the end so much as the obstacles he had to cross along the way. The Hunter Exam was an obstacle, so was Heaven’s Arena, and so was trying to get their hands on a copy of Greed Island.

On the surface, it sounds easy enough. They need some creativity, sure, because that _is_ an awful lot of money. But thinking about it, Killua’s sure it was bound to be a boring to all hell process, grinding like in one of his games just to amass that much cash. Don’t get him wrong, it’s not like anyone’s going to hire two twelve-year-olds, and they wouldn’t be able to gather that much money that fast anyway if that was the case. But neither of them had a quick one-shot foolproof get rich scheme idea either.

Hence, they try another way.

It doesn’t go exactly as planned.

The Phantom Troupe is terrifying for several reasons. For one, Hisoka is there. For the other, never mind the creepy clown, there are _thirteen_ of them. The sight of them before him sets off all the alarms built into Killua’s spine, when he instinctively realizes that the two of them are outmatched, outclassed, outgunned in every possible way.

Because there are things that raw talent just cannot compensate for: experience, discipline, even larger, rarer potential than his.

They want to keep Gon, and Killua already knows they will get shut down.

He however does not expect Gon to play a game of morality with the Phantom Troupe of all people. What kind of idiot does that?

Gon is exactly that idiot, loud, effulgent, lit up by his very own convictions that cannot ever be stripped from him.

He holds Killua back from the edge, from trying to dive into something that the voice in his brain is already desperately trying to convince him out of. It is Gon, his sincerity and goodness which envelops Killua all over when they realize there’s another way, one that doesn’t involve some self-sacrificial play, going out in a blaze of glory.

Not that Gon would have let Killua anyway, because apparently, he’s not allowed to die for Gon.

Never had Killua ever contemplated throwing his life away for someone else, until now. Sure, his life wasn’t all that fantastic, each day having blended into the next almost seamlessly, without rhyme or purpose. And yeah, he did kill for a living, or he used to. Compared to someone else who had done some good in the world, Killua’s life probably didn’t really amount to much. But it didn’t mean he was going to toss it away like scraps without having a good reason.

And if one came along, Killua figures that it would also be fine. It isn’t as if he had much to live for anyway, which is why he left Kukuroo Mountain in the first place.

To find something, to feel alive.

Killua’s still unsure if Gon is it, but Gon is at least a lot more interesting than whatever the heck he had going on before. So, right now, Gon is worth that, worth his life, because he did somehow manage to turn Killua’s days into a picturesque journey and not just a loop of faded sunrises and sunsets on repeat.

In that moment, Killua frantically debated whether it was more important to him to listen to Gon or to save Gon.

In the spaces of his hesitation, they find a different way out.

He’s glad that he didn’t have to choose in the end, that he got both.

There was a time, when Killua envied Kurapika for their drive, their purpose. Not the cause of it, but how Kurapika is willing to put it all on the line. Even if he does not agree with Kurapika, Killua can at least respect their decisions, the root of it.

It isn’t sufficient to be a satellite orbiting its center, a ring framing a planet. Killua always finds himself drawn into things, wrapped up in someone else’s cause, turned into a pawn, maybe a knight even. Not that he has anything else to do, but he was supposedly born to lead. Yet all he does is wander into situations where he follows, returning empty-handed, nothing to call his own.

(Unless he counts stains of scarlet, along the fringes of his nails that he always takes extra care to scrub clean.)

Gon ensures that they were never going to turn down the chance to help a friend. Killua probably didn’t even consider them friends until then, truthfully speaking – Kurapika and Leorio that is – but it felt good to be trusted, to be at least somewhat needed.

Yes, he’s still being used, but it feels different than before. It lies in the _are you sures_ of Kurapika’s tone and the anxiety radiating off even the fabric of Leorio’s suit and the reassuring squeeze of Gon’s hand. It is about achieving something, the sense of accomplishment borne from an infinitesimal core bouncing inside him, a sensation he never got from being told a job well done.

Killua doesn’t care to wish on shooting stars, but one day, he thinks he might want to become one.

This certainly isn’t like the rest of his video games, that’s for damn sure.

Gon paves his own path here too. Despite them walking in blind versus the rest of the veterans in this mirage of a place, Gon chooses to start from scratch.

He apologizes to Killua for his decision, but Killua doesn’t mind it at all. He’s not worried, even with some unknown horror of a spell cast on him. Whatever it is, he’s likely gone through worse.

He doesn’t expect it on those streets, and when does he ever? It isn’t like Gon would have guessed the effect it would have on Killua, waiting until they hit a bench on the sidewalk or something so Killua could collapse against it for support. Gon looks at him, _really_ looks at him, and Killua shrivels up and burns to a crisp under that earnestness, the intensity of it. The words aren’t much; they were probably thought of on the spot. Yet Killua’s already taken it all in and spread the seeds where it may, a siren song curled around his ribs, birthing a type of magnetic yearning.

It spreads fast, not at all thinly. Killua lets it; he has a lot of room.

He really cannot fathom how Gon just says whatever he means. It’s part of the charm he supposes, the way Gon owns up to who he is without peeling back extra layers, without having to hide the parts of himself deemed weak, not worth showcasing.

Assassins blend into shadows; light is an occupational enemy.

But it sure feels good to bathe under sunlight, to be showered by affection for not how fast he learns a new skill, or for his endurance under brutal ‘training’, but just because he’s Killua.

This time, Gon brings them to Greed Island, which honestly screams adventure and danger disguised in summer colours. This time, the obstacle at hand is everything: the system, the people, the downright dirty fights no longer regulated in an arena where the only purpose was to _win._

Greed Island is hands-on training, free, not at all prescribed. Ging has sent Gon here to use it as his playground, his tower to climb, his land to reign, and Killua is just along for the ride as usual, used to the passenger seat by now. Being right beside Gon gets him front row tickets to some first-class crazy shit, lets him be the first one to call his best friend a complete and utter moron when he eventually does something dumb.

Why Greed Island? That isn’t clear yet, but that’s part of the fun, right? Searching for a clue that would lead them to Ging. Cryptic, mysterious Ging. It’s the whole reason why Gon became a hunter, the reason he met Killua, so he supposes, begrudgingly, he has to be somewhat grateful to Ging Freecss.

If nothing else, at least Ging and his friends have developed an interesting game, each card unique and the possibilities of Nen suddenly unlocking before Killua’s very eyes. It can certainly go beyond what Bisky taught them, what they’ve made of it themselves so far.

Killua relearns that he is definitely not good at everything; there is a long way to go. There are endless mountains out there to climb, chests to unlock, undersea taverns to explore, tasks he cannot complete without decades of training or some damn good teamwork.

He is not good at everything yet, but right now, what he is good at is being Gon’s friend.

 _It can only be Killua_ hits him hard because of all that. He never gets to ask Gon exactly what that means, since there weren’t a whole lot of options on the table either. Maybe it could have just meant that he was the best out of a ton of shitty selections, and not that Gon trusts him, wants it to be him, would choose him out of all the Hunters in the world.

It hits him even harder later, when Gon says enthusiastically how he’d first introduce Killua to Ging. Because wasn’t Ging the source of Gon’s drive? Killua was an afterthought, a passing streak in the sky, and now –

For the first time in a long time, Killua doesn’t suppress that bubbling queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach, and finally wonders, who is he to Gon?

(He knows who Gon is to him now. Knows it surely, irrevocably, unbearably.)

Because as glaringly obvious as Gon has always been, never mincing his words, it still doesn’t fill that hollow gap Killua’s looking for, how if this card leads them to Ging, then what?

Killua still hasn’t found his north star, hasn’t found much less granted his own wish.

But he’s so close to helping fulfill Gon’s, and the thought explodes within him, fragments of scattered starlight.

It doesn’t take them to Ging.

Instead, it takes them to a man named Kite, someone that Gon clearly looks up to in a different way, one that radiates a mature, knowing aura.

They fall into yet another adventure, one that has even bigger stakes involved than before. Greed Island was real, but it was also only a game.

The Chimera Ants are not a game.

They aren’t weak but they aren’t strong either, Killua muses, when he kills one of them with his thighs.

Oh, how wrong he was.

He’s never felt so weak before in his life. His head spun and pulsed with a hypnotic echo of _run, run, run_ and it took everything he had to convince himself that the extra time was worth it to grab Gon too.

God, they were idiots, crashing into the pit of hell-bent danger with heads held up far too high and Kite paid the price for it.

No, he isn’t strong enough for this. He knew it then and is reminded again when Bisky says he’ll eventually leave Gon behind. Killua hated how cruel and honest it was. He hated it, because he remembers that split reluctance, the push he had to give himself, how he knew Gon would also hate him for it afterwards just as much.

He isn’t prepared for that brilliant wide smile, eyes that don’t hold even a smidgen of doubt behind them when he swears that Kite is alive. How Killua wishes he had so much undying faith… because he knows Kite is long gone. He sensed that aura, nefarious, the type of killing intent that would have damn well finished the job.

Gon however is foolishly hopeful and perhaps that is what they all need right now. A fool’s gold, the rise of a dying sun, something to hold onto.

He can’t ruin that. Killua doesn’t _know,_ not for sure.

Being around Gon, headstrong and full of splendor, it makes Killua want to believe too.

It is that blind belief which brings Killua to the cliffside of it all, that desire to stay next to Gon’s warmth, for it to melt away his shadows until only a rhythm echo remains, an illusion of residual sin.

He doesn’t know why it took him so damn long to realize that he was never afraid of death, not in that way, shaky legs and a trembling soul, the devil’s whisper vibrating through his skull.

He should have known.

Killua is not afraid of death, even more so now that he has something to live for. It isn’t for himself, but every day that he stays by Gon, he grows a bit closer to being someone he thinks he likes being, and damn, he really wants to see where that leads him. Gon’s trailblazed a path, like he’s dashing to the end of the goddamn galaxy and Killua watches the sparks of his footsteps fall as they chase the unknown together.

This time, he can’t protect Gon by grabbing him and running. This time, he has to protect Gon by fighting.

He can’t lose Gon.

It’s an unacceptable outcome.

_It has to be Killua._

And for Killua, it always had to be Gon too.

But as it turns out, it didn’t have to be Killua.

Gon is blunt and doesn’t think before he speaks most of the time, which always made it easy for Killua to read his best friend.

That’s why it hurt when Gon shut himself down, when he hinged his new purpose entirely on reviving Kite. To an outsider maybe, it would have sounded like Gon was just truly determined. But it didn’t fool Killua. There was a thin thread threatening to unwind, little by little, and it comes apart right before Killua’s eyes.

Gon flares up in flames, a comet strayed from its path.

Killua follows, because he never had a road of his own in the first place, so who minds whether or not it’s a little detour or a big one?

If Gon crashes and burns down to Earth, then Killua will leap right into the inferno with him.

It happens just like that. On that rooftop, Killua gets eclipsed by sheer will, contracts into himself, and decides to follow his undying star.

It’s never been a question of if, but when. Ever since they left NGL. Killua knew, and he didn’t care. He was already in Gon’s orbit, everything already penned in.

He was prepared for it all. He was prepared to die with Gon, die for Gon, needlessly, helplessly. Because the alternative was going on in a world where Gon’s light was extinguished, leaving Killua untethered, out of sync, empty.

Gon was willing to put his life on the line for his goals, every time without fail, and now – Killua can finally do it too.

He isn’t prepared for this.

It reminds him of a solar eclipse, black sun and ugly tendrils, the night painted red. The needle is gone, but Killua’s first instinct is still to _run._

Death is not the only way to stomp out a light. One can do it all on their own, just by flicking a switch.

Turns out, Gon’s was permanent.

Killua had sworn long ago that he would follow Gon anywhere, but he never imagined that there would come a point where he wouldn’t be allowed to.

Gon isn’t dead, but he might as well be. Comets burn out. Stars fade. Killua saw him go out in a blaze of not-so-much-glory.

Killua isn’t a shooting star yet, having been left stranded, purposeless, still unable, perhaps unwilling to exercise his own autonomy.

But he knows of one. One that will help Killua raise Gon from the ashes.

Bisky said he’ll leave Gon behind to die one day. Killua’s glad he proved her wrong.

When he finds the courage to leave Gon behind, put back together in one piece, Killua thinks he’s really the one who’s been left for dead.

Alluka is just like him, wandering aimlessly, but with far more energy and a better tendency to voice what she wants. It is easy for Killua to cater to her, his new sun.

It does not solve the fact that Killua had cut one lifeline only to attach himself to another, a star that gleans its energy only from other people, one who cannot shine on his own.

He thinks seeing new sights will help, that Alluka and Nanika’s curiosity will spark something in him. Sometimes he felt twinges of that when he was with Gon, inexplicable, fleeting, and he misses it, the sense of impossibility disappearing, their halcyon days. After a long time apart, Killua finally thinks he’s strong enough for it now, to know when to voice his opinions when it matters, how to lead instead of follow, how to stand on his own.

It takes Killua years after to realize the mistakes they made as children, jumping from adventure to adventure, pushing themselves past their limits well before their prime just because they could. While it accelerated their growth, it was also a double-edged sword, eventually stunting Gon’s by cutting it off altogether.

Killua still doesn’t know how to talk about that part of it, even though Gon continually tells him that it’s okay, that it’s a bummer but he made that decision and he always means what he says.

Killua thinks that isn’t enough of an explanation for some of the things Gon’s told him over the years, because words are just that, and not all of it frank, without double entendres and vague hints between the letters.

Because Gon was, _is_ his light, his guiding star, the purpose he fulfilled to an extent and then abandoned because he couldn’t bear to stare into the sun anymore without wondering when it might choose to stop staring back.

But saying that out loud, those words, what would they mean to Gon? Would he understand how Killua feels? Would he get it without needing more?

Killua wonders, and wonders, until it bursts out of him, a whimpering supernova.

It was never said in those exact words, but Gon does really mean everything he says.

Because after all this time, it turns out that Killua was Gon’s light too.

**Author's Note:**

> One day I’ll go write that standalone Gon character study that I've been meaning to, until then, thanks for reading. Please leave some love if you liked it!
> 
> You can catch me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/silverinerivers) & read my other HxH fics [here!](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverinerivers/works?fandom_id=22959)


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